Thanks to everyone at the hallowed and historic Mechanics Hall in Portland, ME for hosting me and The World in A Phrase on Nov 18, to The Rabkin Foundation for helping make the evening possible, and to Back Cove Books for moving the merch. And thanks to the Portland peeps who came out to juggle words, ideas, and balls.

Every talk is different, because I put different aphorisms into the globe and because every time different aphorisms come out of the globe. There was no blank sheet selected from the globe at Mechanics Hall, but there was lots of conversation about and exchange of aphorisms — going on well after my talk officially ended. Just two of the memorable sayings shared and originated by members of the audience…

Good things happen when you get out of the house

excellent parental advice from an aphoristically-inclined dad, and

Hold the handlebars loosely

this latter aphorism by Mary Louise Schumacher, executive director of The Rabkin Foundation.

This one by author Ruha Benjamin is from a talk she gave at the Charleston Literary Festival:

Resistance is fertile.

And Bradley Shingleton, who was kind enough to attend my talk at Politics and Prose in DC and throw out the ceremonial first juggling ball, is teaching a continuing education class this winter on aphorisms. (Why didn’t I think of that?!) Bradley is also an aphorist, and here are a few of the sayings he shared with me…

Some knots should be loosened slowly rather than cut quickly.

Worrying about insomnia keeps me awake at night.

It takes at least two people to create loneliness.

In other aphorism-related news, NPR’s L. Carol Ritchie wrote an ode to the passing of the penny in which she lists some of the penny-centric sayings inspired by this humble coin — ‘in for a penny, in for a pound’, etc… She asked me why I thought the penny was so proverbial, such a rich image for aphorisms, which prompted these thoughts and an aphorism…

I think the penny lends itself to aphorisms because they are both small — the aphorism is the shortest form of literature, and the penny is the smallest monetary denomination. Though pennies and aphorisms are both small, they both contain a lot of value, which is where I think so many of the common expressions involving pennies come from … a penny for your thoughts, the penny dropped, a penny saved is a penny earned. An aphorism collection is in many ways like the jar of pennies so many of us collected as kids; keep adding to your collection long enough, and you’ll find yourself unexpectedly wealthy when you start counting the pennies and unexpectedly wise when you start recounting the aphorisms.

Put a penny on your prison floor. Now you live in a vault.

This aphorism is by JPJ, a mysterious aphorist about whom nothing is known apart from the fact that the author self-published a book in 2009 called Last Aphorisms. I like this aphorism because it suggests how we can transform negative situations by bringing some kind of value to them ourselves. If we find ourselves imprisoned in an unsatisfying circumstance, bring something worthwhile to it and that will transform both the circumstance and the way we regard the circumstance.

Finally, in still other aphorism-related news, Seán Moncrieff had me on his Newstalk radio show in Ireland to banter a bit about aphorisms…